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UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN, LAWRENCE, KANSAS
.
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 1938
Behavior Is Correlated With Climate
Bv Muriel Mykland. c'39
Whether they have taken courses in geography or not, most University students have heard at some time or another, the statement that there is a definite relationship between the attitudes and behavior as evinced in civilization.
Prof. R. H. Wheeler, head of the University department of psychology, has recently contrived support to this theory in an article entitled "Climate and Human Behavior" published in the February issue of *Progress in Kaucasus*, the official press release of the Kansas Chamber of Commerce.
Professor Wheeler has been directing an elaborate investigation in the department, which may be held in a story with a psychological approach.
Colder, Drier Era Indicated
In discussing man's progress as based on science, Doctor Wheeler makes the point that the early worldwide fluctuations of climate, which resulted in geological formations, are repeated now in historic times on a greatly reduced scale, both in length and intensity.
He cites the example of the ancient civilizations of Crete, Asia Minor and India to support his belief that climatic changes "affect" humanity profoundly. He also shows that the great civilizations and prosperous eras came with a "congenial" climate. Although he does not define "congenital," we take it to mean a time when the climate was lower than the of the congenual climate was from 1900 to 1933 or 1834, and sigms now point to a possible long drought era with lowered annual temperatures.
Forecasts Individualistic Trend
The effect of severe climates on man is taken up, with the statement that they induce tolerance of mind, democratic spirit, and romanticism in literature, art and music. Individualism and economic systems are also born during cold-dry times. The reaction of man to climatic changes is sharply drawn, with examples and illustrations.
A trend toward the individualistic extreme again is forecast—as our existing over-centralization breaks down. "Communism gets worse during warm times, and individualism worse during cold times in history."
Doctor Wheeler's hope is that if "climate will be accommodating enough to sift down to a middle-of-the-road position for a while perhaps man will then be able to control his ambitions, his philosophy his temperament - in short, his whole personality - and resolve resolving psychological contradictions that go with extreme contradictions in climate."
magazines and her editorial work.
Reception Today-magazines and her forthcoming work. Her comments on the changes in the University Campus were combined with a satirical title of the student. Fifty-three years ago the average student was an idealist, absorbed in his studies. She finds the modern streamlined model a materialist, considering only how his studies will aid him in the "bread and butter way."
Continued from page 1
She has given innumerable gifts to the University in service, books, objects of art, historical documents, and pictures, and now it seems fitting that she be honored on this, her eighty-fifth birthday.
University Daily Kansar
Official Student Paper of
THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
LAWRENCE, KANSAS
PUBLISHER DAVID F. PARTHII
EDITOR-IN-CHEF TOM A. ELLEM
ASSOCIATE EDITORS: MARTIN BUNTSON AND
DAVID W. ANGELS
FRATERTE EDITOR
KENNY LUNN
MANAGING EDITOR
MARVIN GOLDEW
CAMPUS EDITORS BID TYLER, GOIA CLEMON
NEWS EDITOR
BILLE FEPZERGAU
SOUTHERN EDITOR
DORRIE HAWKS
CAMPUS EDITOR
ELON TORRENCI
MAKEUP EDITOR
JOHN MARYANS AND
JIMMY ANGELS
REWRITE EDITOR
DICK MARTIN
TELEGRAPH EDITOR
JANE HILL
SUNDAY EDITOR
JANE FLOOR
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College Radicalism Is Just a 'Pale Pink'
Far removed from the University's red scare, and yet pertinent in every sense come the words of Dr. Alexander G. Ruthven, president of the University of Michigan speaking to alumni of that school at a meeting in New York City this week.
"It is probably the prevailing conservatism of our colleges and universities," to quote him, "which is in a large part responsible for their reputation for radicalism. Far from being red, or even liberal, they are, on the whole, the strongholds of conservatism and important agencies for maintaining the status quo.
"Even more these institutions tend with age to become crystallized by tradition, regulations and departmentalism," he continued, "until with them the term 'liberal education' is a travesty, and they function as molds into which the students are poured to emerge either as a uniform product or as rejects from the process.
"Thus any evidence of unorthodox thinking, the slightest tinge of pink, becomes conspicuous as a departure from the norm and causes a spasm of hysteria in the timid souls who are fearful of being disturbed."
Much in the same vein, the John Dewey society held this week that academic freedom was being curtailed by "pressure groups," and that this constituted in their view "one of the most vital issues of the day."
The society pointed out that noted historians as David S. Muzzey had been forced to delete or rewrite certain passages of their books because they clashed with local prejudices.
Such organizations, progressive or conservative, which seek to hamper school teachers or hamstring them with rules and regulations, are denounced by the society as "enemies of democracy." Such organizations attack anybody as "dangerous" who even disagrees with them.
Jewish organizations, it is pointed out, have banned Shakespeare's "Merchant of Venice" and one Irish community refused to allow one of Louis Untemeyer's anthologies because "one poem contained a phrase offensive to them."
Emnoria Gazette:
The Truth About It
The society wonders what, essentially, is the difference between this method and that of the Nazi and Fascist states which dictate what the student shall and shall not be taught?
The Independence Reporter is the only daily paper in Kansas which seems to believe there is anything to the red scare witch hunt at K.U. The Independence Reporter is always excited about Communists, sees them in every bush and makes a wide curve at every alley for fear they will jump out and bite it. The Independence paper is sure the lad, Don Henry, who died in Spain, had been "insidiously taught not to fight in the defense of his country to but give his life to international Bolshevism," and that he was "hustled off to Spain" and that his diary furnishes "links of evidence that bear tell-tale stories of one of the most insidious pieces of red work ever carried on before what are supposed to be enlightened eyes!"
Charles F. Scott will now take the stand. Charles F. Scott of the Iola Register is well qualified as witness, (a) by being the leading conservative editor of Kansas, (b) by being member of the committee appointed by the Kansas Board of Regents to investigate radical activities in the University of Kansas, (c) by service as regent of K.U., president of the alumni association, for thirty years a college trustee and two years as acting president of the College of Emporia, and (d) by being a scholar, a Republican and a gentleman who never was called a red. Mr. Scott, who officially knows all the evidence, who has as an examiner looked at the diary, who has heard the story of this "insidious propaganda," writes that the committee "will probably discover that the young man was an extremist when he went to the university, that he soon became the leader of a very small group of political radicals, that he was much more likely to have induced others to go to Spain than to have been induced by others to take that step." And Mr. Scott, who has before him all the evidence that this legislative committee can possibly find, writes that the committee will discover "that instead of there being several hundred of these political extremists among the student body, there are probably not to exceed a score, and they have no following and little influence." Mr. Scott discounts and denies that "the faculty at Kansas University is honeycombed with Communists and radicals."
What Kansas Editors Say
Now if Charles F. Scott, being what he is, he careful, conscientious, highly intelligent conservative, and knowing what he does as member of the committee officially appointed go into the whole matter, concludes there is nothing to it, we are going to sleep tonight. The act that the Independence Reporter, which cows nothing of the charges and which is a confirmed addict to the doctrine that the raw
head and bloody bones of Bolshevism are ready to swallow us whole—all these things will not haunt our dreams. We are not bothered that the Independence Reporter is scared out of a year's growth.
Reds at $15 a Head Kansas City Journal-Post:
The Kansas legislature is about to contribute $7,500 to the publicity fund of the Communist party. The house has passed and a senate committee has recommended for passage an appropriation of that amount to investigate red activities at the state educational institutions.
The reds are of course eagerly waiting final approval of the bill. For them it is the biggest break they have received in Kansas in many years.
The Communists did not go to the trouble of putting their ticket on the Kansas ballot in 1936, but they did in Iowa, which gave them 559 votes. The population of Iowa is considerably greater than that of Kansas, so it may be assumed that in Kansas there are 500 persons who would have voted the Communist ticket if they had had the chance. The legislature plans to spend $7,500—or $115 per head—in advertising these 500 as a corrupting menace to the state's population of 1,850,000.
Is it any wonder that the reeds welcome these legislative investigations? In them their influence and numerical strength are magnified out of all proportion to the facts. A forlorn fragment of a lost cause, they can sit up and take notice when a legislature spends $7,500 to establish them as a powerful, insidious influence.
Have the house and senate committees received anonymous letters urging the investigation? The authors should be traced. Moscow may have been pulling the legislative leg.
A Passing Fancy
Syracuse Journal:
Our state legalature, which was sent to Topeka to do something about the social welfare problem, has gone off on a tangent chasing communists at the University of Kansas. They are spending a part of the public's money foolishly, to prove something that doesn't matter one way or the other. Communism, like pimples, is an affliction in the life of young men. It only an adolescent characteristic which in maturity is generally outgrown. Only a few radicals continue to be unable to differentiate between a theory of political science and its practical application. Personally we see no harm in allowing students to study communism. They are sent to school to learn.
The danger lies in trying to suppress knowledge. Right now, this suppression is directed against a political theory which in this country has long been used to frighten people who do not know what it is. By the exercise of the same un-American principle, however, it may be directed against the Democrats, the Republicans, or any other clique whose teachings the legislators oppose.
Legislative Frittering
Factiones members of the Kansas legislature recently introduced a bill proposing to create a "State Department of Frittering" intended of course, to imply that the principal governmental activity now-a days is to think up means of getting rid of public funds.
But what really makes us disgusted, is the proposal to "prosecute the student editorial writer and fire a teacher in the department of journalism" because the instigator of the investigation does not like a recent editorial published in the student newspaper. We read the editorial, and don't think it was well thought through, but if the practice of arresting the writer of every third rate editorial and firing his boss were carried into commercial journalism we soon would have to enlarge our jails and depend on government news releases for our information.
A recent move by the house of representatives, however, would indicate that the legislature is ready to act itself as a very proficient department of frittering. Latest plan is to frittier away $7,500 in an investigation of alleged Communistic activities at the University of Kansas. The house adopted a resolution authorizing such an investigation by a vote of 92 to 4.
College students normally, and fortunately, are liberal, and in every university student body there is a little group perhaps a few dozen who fancy themselves Communists. The proposed K.U. probe got its incentive from the death of such a student, Don Henry, who was killed fighting in the government forces in the Spanish Civil War. Red inflexions brought to bear on him at the University, so the story goes, induced him to go to Spain and enlist in the Loyalist army.
Garnett Review:
the university, that he soon became the leader of a very small group of political radicals, that he was much more likely to have induced others to go to Spain than to have been induced by others to take this step."
As Charles Scott of the Iola Register points out, "It probably will be discovered that the young man was an extremist when he went to
A Faculty Member Writes Editor Daily Kansan:
To the many excellent articles from Kansas newspapers upon the proposed legislative probe of communism at the University, it should like to submit a response. The faculty of our faculty. In the debate which stamped the house of representatives into adoption of this measure, we were told by the professor, senior of journalism for allowing the Daily Kansas to print an article against war propaganda; and (2) an article against abnormal psychology for allegedly teaching free love.
Representative Carper, in his discussion of a Kanan editorial concerning the Panay incident, assumed that student editors would not have printed "such stuff" unless they had been taught it in their journalism classes. He did not recognize the possibility that such work had been written independently, without faculty dictation or interference.
While he named no specific professor, we may illustrate the attitude of the journalism faculty by a simple statement. Two years ago, when the Kauken University of Hawaii lost a number of pointed attacks upon the R.O.T.C., the head of our department of journalism, Prof. L. N. Pflint, had in the university a son who was an enthusiastic member of
If a student editor is merely the tame mouthpiece of authority in college, he will be the tame mouthpiece of authority after he gets out. If he is encouraged to express independent and honest views in his student days, he is more likely to express such views in this context, though such means is freedom of the press preserved.
The father approved of his son's enlistment and felt that he derived benefit from his military training. Why then did not Professor Flint use his authority to suppress attacks upon the R.O.F.C?! Simply because he and his staff felt that the exercise of independence is most important in the training of a journalist.
It follows that the Kansan editors are sometimes mistaken; they sometimes fail to represent the majority opinion of the student body; they occasionally put the University in a bad light before the people of North Carolina. This is why we pay for strengthening the honesty and integrity of the newspaper profession through our graduates.
The second attack was made upon a professor of abnormal psychology, an obvious reference to Prof. J. F. Brown of our faculty. He is accused of teaching free love. Here he a不安 fortune ambiguity enters. Does "teaching communism" or "teaching free love" advocating or merely talking about these subjects?
Surely the very title of Professor Brown's course, "Abnormal Psychology," suggests that he deals with the abnormalities and irregularities of human conduct, but rather of understanding and remedying them.
Anyone with an elementary knowledge of Sgmund Freud and the science of psychiatry which he initiated will realize how absurd his theories are, how impasses and their effects on human conduct. If the legislators doubt this, they may profitfully consult Dr. Karl Meninger of Topica, an eminent psychiatrist who can enlighten them on this
It is possible that Professor Brown's lectures have offended some of his students; yet in all fairness we should recognize that his subject is particularly difficult. He might not be a professor, no matter how innocuous his subject, occasionally finds that he has shocked some student's sense of propriety. That such offense is not generally felt by Professor Brown's students is attested by his election several years ago as the University's most populous.
His subject is one that requires a degree of frankness not customary in ordinary conversation. It is to be expected that some of the students at the medical school occasionally blast at the intimate details of an annotation; but an instructor cannot afford to omit essential feature of his course to covid such temporary embarrassment.
The action of our legislature has strengthened the conviction of many people in this state that the need to protect citizens from "the worst of Communists," as a Douglas county farmer expressed it to not make the sober thought would show up.
One would naturally look for an interest in communism in those departments concerned with science
of government—the departments of political science and economics. For several years the head of our political science department, Prof. F. H. Guild has been Director of Research for the Legislative Council of Kansas, and his advice is sought in determining the content of the laws passed by the legislature itself.
Furthermore, the state government has "regularly employed the services of our department of economics. In deviding plans of taxation, in reorganizing the banks and the securities industries, in giving of civil service examinations, the state has employed members of that department in responsible positions, and their actions are a matter of public rec-
Even Professor Ise, perhaps the most publicized liberal of the department, does not devote his time to muleholding youth in secret communicative meetings; he does not take time to attend before chambers of commerce and gatherings of business men. This record does not seem to be one of man or dangerous practices on the part of our faculty.
Perhaps the legislature does not realize what it is doing to the University. William Allen White and the faculty of Kansas State College see the danger clearly enough, as their comments show.
Kansas is on its way toward establishing a similar unfavorable environment for the trucking industry that it may pay higher salaries to attract less able men. Whatever the result of the investigation, in purchasing talent the Kansas taxpayer's dollar will be lower than expected.
The tradition of academic freedom is something highly prized by the teaching profession. While paying attention to this tradition, we know that University has been able to secure and to hold good teachers because of the fine academic tradition which they discovered here. She has retained a lifelong curiosity about universities, while other institutions with higher salary scales could not qualify for such membership. I know one teacher who offered an offer from another institution at almost three times his salary here, laurately because it was known that he suffered from interference with academic freedom.
The greatest strength of a university lies not in its wealth, its equipment, or its faculty, but in the product of all these, its good name. Why are some of our citizens so thoughtlessly intent on tearing down buildings, to build them and put them into structured? In the words of Charles Lamb, "How shall they build it up again?"
John E. Hankins, Associate Professor of English.
Official University Bulletin
---
Notices due at Chancellor's Office at 3 p.m., preceding
regular office hours from 10 a.m. to 10 a.m.
Sunday for daytime or Tuesday for evening.
Vol. 35 Sunday, February 27, 1938 No. 16
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE ORGANIZATION: The regular weekly meeting will be held Tuesday afternoon in room C, Myers hall. All students and faculty members interested are invited to attend—Jack Dalley,
CREATIVE LEISURE COMMISSION. The Creative Leisure Commission will meet at 2:30 t's afternoon at Henley house. Work will be continued on the committee and interested are invited - Ruth Fong, Creative Yeahmens.
GRADUATE SCHOLARSHIPS AND FELLOW-SHIPS. Applications for scholarships and fellowships in the Graduate School for the academic year 1938-39 are due at the Graduate office on Tuesday, March 1, 1938. Application blanks in a y are obtained at the college, 225 Frank strong hill. E. B. Stuffer, Dean.
MEDICAL APTITUDE TEST: A supplementary medical antitude test will be given by the Association of American Medical Colleges on April 9, 1888. A premedical student who has passed an exam planning to enter a medical school, either at the University of Kansas or elsewhere, next fall, should take this test on April 9. Those who desire to take the test should notify Dr. O. Kucy, medical director (phone—KU 86), immediately—O. O. Stoland.
MENS STUDENT COUNCIL. There will be a
meeting on Thursday, at 8:15 in the Fine
Room. Michele Elemerson, Secretary
VACANCIES IN MEN'S STUDENT COUNCIL
Notice is hereby given of the following vacancies on the Men's Student Council: law representative and president of the sophomore class. Petitions for the men's student council will be sent to the secretary of the Men's Student Council on or before Monday noon, Feb. 28. Moe Etterson, Secretary.
Announcing---
JUNIOR
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With
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Tickets Now Selling at-- Bell's, Union Bldg., Bus. Off. $2 Advance — $2.25 at Door
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FRIDAY, MARCH 11th